Meet our Heritage Society Members
Meet our Heritage Society Members
Walmer E. (Jerry) Strope '42
Walmer E. (Jerry) Strope '42 passed away on August 15, 2010. A proud alumnus of Webb, Mr. Strope was a loyal donor who designated a bequest as his parting legacy gift to Webb.
Jerry Strope was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and graduated from Creston High. He attended Webb, receiving his degree in 1942, at the outbreak of WWII. He was immediately employed by the Department of the Navy as a civilian naval architect and marine engineer.
His early career was spent during WWII designing ships and assessing battle damage for the Bureau of Ships in Washington, DC. His insatiable intellectual curiosity led him to become involved with the Manhattan Project in the development of the atomic bomb and ultimately to work with radiation, blast and fallout shelters, population relocation and other aspects of civil defense.
During WWII, Jerry held various responsible positions in the Department of the Navy and eventually became the head of Radiological Defense research for the US Navy. After leaving the Department of the Navy, Jerry was further employed by the Department of Defense as head of research for the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, an independent agency housed in the Department of Defense, Jerry led efforts to conduct research and defenses for the civilian population of the United States for those organizations.
Mr. Strope's efforts led to the adoption not only of many specific civil defense policies but his research as an individual and as an administrator led to many breakthroughs in the knowledge of radiological and health physics impacts on humans and specific approaches to limiting the impacts should a nuclear strategic exchange have occurred. His knowledge, innovations in research, research design and administration helped to protect the national security of the United States throughout the Cold War.
Jerry was a respected technical advisor to many Congressional Committees throughout his life and the Committee on the Present Danger headed and established by the Honorable Paul Nitze. To this day, he has remained influential for his technical knowledge.
After leaving the federal government in the late 1960's he became a principal in the Center for Planning and Research, Inc. of Palo Alto California and Fairfax Virginia. From the 1980's to present, Jerry wrote newsletters and was President of the American Strategic Defense Association which was an influential voice in both nuclear strategic policy and.
The impact of "Jerry" Walmer Strope on the radiological defense and National Security of the United States cannot be overemphasized. He was close personal friends with the giants of the development of the atomic age, including Jerome Wigner and Edward Teller.
Jerry's work led him and his family to San Francisco Bay area in the early 50s, then back to Northern Virginia in 1962 where he and his wife Dee Jay raised two children, Chris and Cynthia.
Jerry and Dee Jay retired to Mt. Holly, Virginia in the Northern Neck in the early 1990s. Here, he turned to his other passion in music with playing the organ, tending to his vegetable garden and his love of the lower Potomac and specifically Machodoc Creek. There they lived until Dee Jay passed away in 2003, after 60 years of marriage.
Webb Institute is grateful to Jerry for his cherished loyalty to Webb and for his choosing to extend his legacy beyond his own lifetime, as a member of Webb's Heritage Society.